February 01, 2018, 08:16:20 am

Greetings denizens of Agon,We know people have been waiting on this news for a while, and it is finally here.We will cover what we will be working on in the coming weeks and what to expect the final pass of magic changes to look like.

As a first point, we wanted to remind that all those who had a subscription active prior to Monday 2018-01-29 at midnight CET will receive 3 extra days of subscription.This is an apology for our delay and login issues. We realize it has been frustrating to many and we hope that our ongoing efforts will make up for these first few days.

Now that the game is out, it is time to look forward to what will happen in the coming weeks.As we've often said, we expect this first month to be about putting out fires. Our first focus will be to continue our stabilization efforts.This launch is offering us our first test and we're doing our best to provide the smoothest experience possible.

After fixing the login issues, we are now making headway in monster stability and reducing client crashes in large scale PvE/PvP encounters.Race changes had to be pushed back for stability, but it will come once we can look into it. Name changes are on the table too.In the meantime, we've decided to provide the InDev token on demand to those who cannot wait for something cleaner.

We'll then work on general racial and anti griefing mechanics.Monster graves protection will be worked on relatively early, so will reworking the rogue status into something smarter.More crafting, loot, scaling and polishing changes will come along the way as time goes on.

Now we'll talk about the coming features with a high impact on a player's medium to long term decision making.Just like for the racial passives, we want players to make an informed choice.Planned ARAC clan limitations:It is important to spread the word for clans to be ARAC only by choice.Gameplay will drastically change for them if they do not heed this warning.

Members of a clan will be rogue based on their clan's settings in Clans->Configuration :- Rogue: If the clan is evil and/or accept members of different racial alliances.- Rogue: If the clan is allied to a clan that is rogue or made up of a different racial alliance.- If a member of a blue clan becomes red, he will be automatically kicked.- If an ally of a blue clan becomes red or rogue, the alliance will be automatically dropped.

The idea is that it really stems from the leaders choice of how they set up their clan.If they alter the configuration to get a red player in, or ally a rogue clan voluntarily, then and only then, will the clan become rogue.Planned magic and combat changes:

We still have three weapon types we feel are under-tuned:- Clubs and Greatclubs: better damage, increased stamina drain on power attack.- Polearms: Better damage and reach, change of the power attack to do a melee slow.

Now on to magic changes, we will have two utility schools split between regeneration skills and cantrips.These two schools and their spells will start maxed out at the exception of mana missile.They are the base toolkit for a mage.

Air Magic:- Stormblast: buffed to be useful.- Come Hither: will gain around 60 impact protection.- Lightning strike: will be reviewed to be less glitchy/floaty.

Earth Magic:- Meteor strike: will be placed outside of the r90 shared cooldown.- Earthquake: will be usable while moving, with potential increase in non-self damage. Linked to school.

Fire Magic:- Magma Storm: will be placed outside the r90 shared cooldown. Will lose damage but have faster casting speed.- Inferno: will lose its knockup effect. Will gain slightly more damage.- Fireball: Fixed/non floaty effect. Effect may be impacted more by title to prevent being madatory pick. Up to community debate.- Wall of fire: Have effect better tailored to be an area blind. Lower damage.- Haste and rapidshot converted to percentage based traits for clarity.

Infliction Magic:- All infliction damage reviewed to be bellow average, but becomes above average when flesh curse is applied.- Venom at level 1: changed to be the "bolt" of this school.- Infliction Shield at lvl 10: Linked to school level.- Flesh Curse as signature: Linked to school level.- Insect Swarm at lvl 30.- Infliction Ward at lvl 40: Linked to durable spell, may cancel DoT's on target (similar to first aid potions). Up to community debate.- Rend at lvl 50: changed to be the r50 of this school. Gains a small infliction debuff.- Exhaust at lvl 60: Linked to mana efficiency, bug fixed.- Undeath at lvl 75: Linked to quicken spell, bug fixes.- Toxic Rain as signature.- Needles at lvl 90: Faster cast time, is placed in the r90 shared cooldown.

Necromancy:- Does 5% less health damage.- Loses both mana and stamina damage.- 5% of damage leeched as health.

Spellchanting:- All attribute buffs are converted to percentage based traits for clarity.- All attribute buffs heal a bit of health and a bit of the attribute they impact. (health/mana/stamina)- Lay on Hands at lvl 1: Keeps cooldown, places other heals on its cooldown. Best heal for multitaskers. Linked to school.- Heal Other at lvl 10: No cooldown, shorter cast time, most mana efficient. Great to keep chip damage for a group in check. Linked to school.- Sacrifice at lvl 20: No cooldown, least mana efficient, costs health, most burst healing. Great to save a single target at personal cost. Linked to school.- Adept: Temporarily increases Spellchanting potency greatly, decreases protections and all other forms of damage greatly.- Mana blast: Becomes an healing blast. No drop off for healing effect.- Healing Chant: Can be used while moving, better healing, no drop off for healing effect.

Water Magic:- Ice Storm: Effect fixed to be an in battle blind. Faster cast time.- Slow and Delayed Shot switch to percentage based traits for clarity.

Witchcraft:- School rewarding rotation skill and accuracy. Support and single target damage focused.- All spells do Malediction damage, which will be set to start at bellow average like arcane damage.- All attribute debuffs are converted to percentage based trait for clarity.- All debuffs have a cooldown similar to r50s, or slightly lower, to encourage rotating two of them in combo mode.- All attribute debuffs do a base health portion of damage and a part of the attribute they impact. (health/mana/stamina)- Ominous drain: Serves as r90 and is added to the r90 shared cooldown.- Spell Curse: Debuffs malediction and does damage. Debuffs are of malediction type so successive applications increase in strength.- Witches Brew: Current self healing effect is applied to others without drop off, self healing divided by 3.